How the Turner Contemporary is expected to transform Margate's harbour skyline

Please don't do it, Margate. Please don't talk about the up-and-coming Turner gallery (Turner Contemporary as it's properly called), as giving the Kent seaside town a bit of the old "Bilbao effect".

The Bilbao effect is what local politicians and those in the regeneration business hope to gain for their towns when investing in an exciting new arts building. It all began more than a decade ago when Frank Gehry's stunning, titanium-clad Guggenheim museum was declared open by King Juan Carlos even as ETA tried to blow him, and Jeff Koons' Puppy (the museum's mascot), off the face of the Basque city.

There's no doubt that the new building did much to transform Bilbao's image from that of a dour Atlantic seaport to one of the most exciting and glamorous places to spend a short city break (all the rage in 1997) in Europe. In fact, what Gehry had been asked to do was to design a building that would do for Bilbao what Jorn Utzon's sensational Sydney Opera House had done for the Australian port.

Adverts appeared in British newspapers offering cheap trips to see the new Guggenheim. This was a revelation at the time; here was one of the very few contemporary buildings that so many people really did feel they had to see. Politicians went too, and were quickly talking of wanting the Bilbao effect for their pet town or city.

Although a little run-down since so many English holidaymakers decided to start holidaying abroad, Margate enjoys a superb setting, some fine streets and buildings, a magnificent sweep of beach, glorious sunsets and as much in the way of fish'n'chips, ice-cream and cream teas as you could ever want. Its new Turner gallery has been designed by David Chipperfield, a fine architect who, as luck would have it, doesn't do Bilbao effect design. In fact his work is positively reticent when compared to Gehry's and although set prominently by the sea, the Turner Contemporary will not be an obvious head-turner.

While showing Turners and contemporary art of all sorts, the Turner Contemporary will fit in rather comfortably with Margate which really only needs a bit (well, quite a lot) of tender loving care (and some cash, jobs, good schools and a general scrub-up) to smarten itself up. And rather than Bilbao, Margate and Kentish politicians should be looking more towards the example of St Ives and the outpost of the Tate that opened there in 1994. The gallery there, designed by Evans and Shalev, is penny-plain and whispery-quiet compared to Gehry's hey-look-at-me Guggenheim at Bilbao, but it has been a great success and done much to boost the fortunes of this much-loved Cornish holiday resort.

In any case, if Margate had wanted to cash in on the Bilbao effect, it would have stuck by its cultural guns and built the daring, and rather wonderful, competition-winning design offered by Snohetta, unveiled in 2001. This extraordinary building would have sat pretty much in the sea as well as out of it, its fin-like or conning tower-style central gallery lashed by the waves. The design was certainly an architectural talking point around the world, but for whatever reason – cash, fear that it might not work, caution – Margate rejected the Snohetta design and called in Chipperfield instead.

What Margate really needs, though, is a bit of the "Margate effect". This whole stretch of coast taking in Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate itself is special, and could be very special; but it needs to look at its own Punch'n'Judy magic and not to the example of a singularly flamboyant building in a Basque city with a very different history and culture indeed. But I bet politicians continue to bang on about the Bilbao effect for a few more elections yet.